InsaneJournal

Who: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black
What: Sirius is tragic and consumptive. Remus is unimpressed by Sirius’s man-cold.
Where: Their flat.
When: Backdated to when Sirius was hacking up a lung. But before Remus was.
Rating: Medium, for swearing.
Status: Log. Complete.

After surviving the intensely awkward experience of Lily Potter moaning like it was the best shag of her life when he was giving her a back rub, and James walking in on said moaning and jokingly telling him not to steal his wife (after throwing oranges at his head), Remus was more than happy to return to his flat and his sick boyfriend. As frustrating as Sirius could be when he was convinced he was dying, Remus really did care about him. Slipping into the flat, where he’d left soup cooking while he’d gone to visit with the Potters, he checked on it and decided to let it cook a little longer.

Going back to the bedroom, he raised an eyebrow at the lump of blankets that he was fairly certain was Sirius. Apparently he was going for pathetic and consumptive today. With a shake of his head and a fond smile, Remus toed off his shoes and laid down on the bed behind the Sirius-shaped blob. He wrapped an arm around it and sighed. “Did you die tragically while I was gone?”

Sirius was dying. There wasn’t a question about it. He felt like someone had stuffed his head with toilet roll. Horrible toilet roll like you got when you didn’t have a toilet roll holder and had to put it on the floor, and the shower water splashed it and it went all weird. He had a head full of that. And his nose was all horrible and snotty and he had to breathe through his mouth, only his throat was full of toilet-roll-phlegm so it went all rattly and he was definitely, without a shadow of a question of a doubt, dying. And in that situation he did what any sensible person would do and hid under the duvet.

He was just wondering whether it was possible to suffocate to death underneath your own bedding when the mattress shifted and a warm, familiar weight curled up behind him, an arm threading around his poor, diseased body.

“Ngguffmph.” Sirius’ voice replied, before squirming enough for his dark head to poke out from his safe cocoon of duvet and pain. “Possibly,” he mumbled, in a croaky voice that may have only been a little bit exaggerated.” I think I have the Black lung. Are you done seducing Lily with backrubs? It seems a bit insensitive of you to be going about replacing me while I am still warm in my grave.”

Remus gave a low snort of amusement. “I’ll take that as a no then,” he said. “Dead men are much quieter than you’re being.” He pressed a light kiss to Sirius’s forehead, a show of affection as well as a subtle way of checking on his temperature, and smiled. “And you always have the Black lung, Sirius. I’m much more concerned about the Potter hair you’re currently sporting. That is a much more pressing problem.”

He gave a low chuckle. “I could never replace you, Padfoot,” he assured Sirius. “For one thing, Lily has entirely the wrong equipment to be your replacement.” He snuggled closer to Sirius. “Besides, I learned my lesson in fifth year. Remember that time Lily asked me to be her date to Hogsmeade? James didn’t speak to me for weeks after that. And anyway, I happen to...you know...love you. So I wouldn’t replace you. Not even with Lily.”

He ran his fingers through Sirius’s hair, hoping to help him relax. “I’ve got soup going on the stove,” he said softly. “It should be ready in just a little bit. Is there anything else I can get you? Other than fags or alcohol or Lucinda? Because motorbikes don’t actually help when you’re sick. Which is yet another reason you should love me better than her.”

Sirius couldn’t even be bothered to care that his hair was currently sticking up in all directions to next week. That was how close to death he was. He might as well already be dead, quite frankly, if that was how his brain had started to conduct itself. It was a tragic state of affairs. Still, at Remus’ slightly awkward confession he very almost smiled. The smile of a dying man. It was all very dramatic and so on until Sirius brought back an arm to kind-of-gently elbow the other boy in the stomach. “You ponce.”

Still, despite Sirius’ not-so-emotional response he rolled over with a melodramatic groan to face Remus, pressing his face into that rather wonderful hollow just above the fair-haired boy’s collarbone and hooking a leg through his. His head felt like it might actually implode. Remus knew how Sirius felt about admitting how he actually felt about anything, especially something that made him feel that bloody pathetic and vulnerable. He just rather hoped Remus knew what he meant by it all. Despite Sirius being an emotionally stunted lunatic. And dying.

“You can’t even brew a bloody potion without blowing up a classroom,” he muttered into the curve of Remus’ neck. He was probably getting Remus’ shoulder all snotty, but he guessed it was a bit late in the day for them to start worrying about sharing bodily fluids. “How did you manage soup? You really are trying to off me, aren’t you?”

“Ponce, huh?” Remus said dryly, his smile one of bemusement as he shifted out of the way of Sirius’s elbow. “Well, you’re certainly an inspiration to romantic poets everywhere.” He swatted his boyfriend lightly on the arm. “I am looking after you and keeping you from dying in a horrible fit of suffering and phlegm. That means you have to be nice to me. There are rules to this, you know. A whole handbook of them, in fact. ‘Things You Don’t Call Your Infinitely Patient and Long-Suffering Boyfriend When He’s Taking Care of Your Pathetically Sick Arse’ I believe it’s called. You should read it some time.”

He let Sirius shift closer and curl up into him, stroking his hair and wrapping his free arm around him. He needed to give the other man some medicine for his head and the rest of it, but he knew he needed him to eat something before he tried that. And anyway, he sort of liked having Sirius all quiet and pliable like this. Perhaps without the sick part. But it was nice to have his boyfriend snuggled up against him like this. They weren’t naturally affectionate people so he rarely got to just touch Sirius, without it being about something more. It was nice, in an unexpected sort of way.

Of course, then Sirius had to go and ruin it by talking. “I can brew potions just fine, thank you,” he insisted. “Just because I couldn’t in second year doesn’t mean it’s still true. And anyway, I can make soup just fine. I only ever have a problem with things that you have to cook quickly. Soup is slow. It takes patience. I like soup. And if you don’t appreciate the soup, I can just as easily dump it on your head. Now stop accusing me of trying to murder you with my cooking and be happy I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself. Ungrateful berk.”

Sirius thought he could probably stay here for an unreasonable amount of time. It was quite comfy, even if Remus was a bit on the angular side to be used as a pillow. He smirked to himself, letting his eyes drift lazily shut against his pounding headache as fingers laced through his hair. He’d liked having his hair played with even before he’d become an animagus – now it was fucking good enough to send him to sleep. He shifted a little so Remus’ touch fell into the sensitive spot behind his ear, squirming against the warm body beside him until they were suitably tangled together.

“Stop saying the word ‘soup’. I feared for my life when we were partnered together in Slughorn’s classes,” he mumbled into his shoulder. “And can I just say you’re being very threatening to a man on his deathbed, Lupin. What would Pomfrey think?” There was a moment’s comfortable silence before Sirius added; “Although I don’t think I’ve ever been made soup before...” But then when he was ill he normally sat around whining to James and Lily, or found some girl to tend to him. Even before that he’d just been shoved into the care of Kreacher, which quite honestly wouldn’t make anyone feel any better.

“You’ve got my snot all over you,” Sirius told the other boy matter-of-factly, still curled tight against him. Sirius gave a pathetic sniff, pulling back a little to examine Remus’ shoulder. ”That’s disgusting.” Although he sounded a little too pleased about it as he rolled away to lean over the side of the bed, scrabbling around on the floor for a tissue and blowing his nose noisily.

Remus enjoyed petting Sirius like this, tangled up together comfortably with the sick man, mostly because it kept Sirius quiet and content. It was nice and calm and, as much as he teased Sirius about playing up his illness, it allowed him to look after his boyfriend and know that he was okay. Or, at least, okay enough to disparage his soup-making skills. “Fine,” he said with a sigh, “if you’re so convinced it will kill you, I’ll toss it out. I don’t know why I bother trying to do nice things for you.” He knew he was being just a bit sensitive about this, but he had genuinely tried to do something helpful and he was just getting mocked for it.

At Sirius’s next admission, Remus sighed and moved his hand from the other man’s hair to his neck. “That’s because you grew up in a house full of crazy people, who don’t think to make soup for their kids,” he said softly. “My mum...well, you know my parents had a hard time adjusting after I was attacked. They were afraid to touch me, as if they would some how catch it, and there was this distance and...” He trailed off. “Well, anyway, my mum used to make me soup after the full moon. It didn’t actually do anything to help with the injuries or how sick I used to feel, but it was nice all the same. It was her way of letting me know she cared.”

He laughed softly as Sirius pointed out that there was snot on him. “You’ve gotten far worse things on me than a bit of snot, Padfoot,” he said idly. “It’s hardly that big a deal.” He grimaced at the sound of his boyfriend blowing his nose, then pulled the other man back to him. “Feeling any better at all?” he asked after a moment.

Sirius gave a low chuckle at Remus’ disgruntled reply to his teasing, grinning wickedly against the curve of his boyfriend’s throat and slipping a hand playfully under the hem of the werewolf’s shirt. He let his eyes drift lazily closed, tracing a gentle pattern over Remus’ hipbone with his fingertips. ”You bother because you - and I quote - happen to… you know… love me.”

Remus’s hand slipped down to his neck, his fingers cool against Sirius’ slightly feverish skin, and the animagus stilled as he listened to Remus’ words. He didn’t like thinking about the years before Remus came to Hogwarts, suffering full moons on his own, with parents fighting to deal with what was happening. He tightened his grip around the other boy, trying to give some unspoken reassurance for things that had happened long ago.

“Well, sadly for you I’m weirdly used to hanging out with werewolves. Anyway, I should thank her for ingraining some kind of soup-making reaction to illness in your brain,” he finally croaked. Then, after a brief silence. “My Mother once gave me a fat lip because I puked all over Kreacher when I was ill. Although, to be fair, I did aim.” He smirked a little, because honestly, when was throwing up on Kreacher not hilarious? Sirius did his bit of nose-blowing, tossing the used tissue absently back in Remus’ direction before he was pulled back into the other man.

“I’m dying, Remus,” he reminded him grumpily. “That’s not the kind of thing people get better from. That’s why it’s such a bugger.” Then, ignoring the pounding in his head, he tilted his jaw to catch Remus in a kiss, pulling away all too soon with a snort of laughter that sent an arrow of pain across his forehead. Turned out kissing was more difficult when you didn’t have the option of breathing through your nose. “Fuck. I’m suffocating… And I really need a fag.”

“That I do,” Remus said with a small but fond smile. He cared about Sirius a lot, more than he really liked to admit. Even when the other man was a complete pest, which was admittedly most of the time. That probably said a lot about his taste in bed partners, but he felt like he could do worse than someone who had stood by him unfailingly for a decade. As Sirius’s grip on him tightened slightly, his smile brightened and he was silently thankful for this weird relationship they had.

“I’ll try and cope with your werewolf fetish,” he said dryly, “as it’s clearly such a hassle for me.” He sighed at the mention of Sirius’s own upbringing, and snuggled closer to his boyfriend. “Your mother was a psychotic harpy,” he said. “And of course you aimed. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t. Now stop tossing snotty tissues at me. It’s disgusting.”

He allowed the kiss, even as he rolled his eyes. “If I catch your consumptive death illness,” he told the other man sternly, “it will be all your fault.” He shook his head at the request for cigarettes, wondering how Sirius had ever managed to survive on his own with such a lack of ability to take care of himself. “You can’t smoke while you’re suffocating. You’ll just suffocate faster, and I like you breathing.”

“Good,” Sirius retorted, falling back into the pillows beside Remus with a muffled thump, curled on his side to face the other man. “You should catch it. Then we can die together from plague. It’ll be like Romeo and Juliet, only with more phlegm and no warring houses will be brought together by the tragedy of the whole thing. Unless you’re talking about James and Regulus. Also, people will just think we’re shagging so it’ll take weeks for them to find us, and by then we’ll probably have been eaten by whatever’s growing under the bed.”

“Anyway,” he continued, even as his excessive rambling turned his voice into some kind of hoarse impersonation of its usual tone. “I’m ill. I should have whatever I need to make myself feel better. Cigarettes included.” The pain in his throat finally getting the better of him, Sirius forced himself to sit upright, squeezing dark eyes shut against the inevitable way the world spun on its axis and the sudden painful pressure in his head.

“Let’s go look at your soup,” he croaked, sliding off the bed and onto the floor with a heavy clunk, keeping a stubborn grip on the duvet so it was pulled with him. Sirius wrapped himself up until he was literally a duvet on legs, his face poking out of the folds of fabric, and sloped miserably towards the kitchen, snuffling and sniffing the whole way there.